Four men have been charged with capital murder in the death of Chevron engineer Christopher Kyser Miree on April 16. Clockwise from top left: Michael Lee; Earnest Wiggins; Bo Taylor and Jamal Lang.

MOBILE, Alabama -- Lawyers for Michael Jerome Lee, the accused shooter in the Midtown Mobile slaying of Christopher Kyser Miree, have asked a judge to move his capital murder trial out of Mobile County because of intense media coverage of the case.

Lee and three other defendants in the case appeared one-at-a-time in Circuit Judge John Lockett’s courtroom this afternoon for a hearing on the status of their cases.

Defense lawyer Art Powell said that he’s concerned the court won’t be able to find an impartial jury locally because of widespread and daily media coverage of the case.

Powell said he plans to gather media reports from the Press-Register and local TV stations, including statistics on the number of readers on websites for the media outlets.

The defense, which is court-appointed, has also requested up to $7,500 to hire an expert to poll Mobile County residents about their awareness and opinions of the case.

Lockett indicated that it would be difficult to convince him to move the case before attempting to find an impartial jury in Mobile County.

Based on previous court rulings, he said, a pool of potential jurors in Mobile County should be questioned to determine whether a fair jury can, in fact, be selected locally.

The judge gave the defense 45 days to subpoena local media, and he scheduled an Oct. 12 hearing on whether to move the trial.

View full sizeChristopher Miree: 23-year-old shot to death in Mobile, Ala., on Friday night, April 16, 2010. Miree was born and raised in Birmingham, went on to be president of a Vanderbilt University fraternity, then took a job in Mobile, working for Chevron Corp. (InsideVandy.com)

Assistant District Attorney Jill Phillips said the prosecution plans to first go to trial against Lee before pursuing capital murder charges against the three other defendants.

Lockett scheduled a May 21 trial date for Lee. The courts have been forced to cut the number of weeks for criminal jury trials by one-fourth because of state budget cuts. Lee’s defense team also said they needed time to prepare.

Police said Lee shot and killed Miree as he begged for his life. The foursome had been driving around Mobile that night, looking for someone to rob, according to police.

They had followed Miree’s roommate from an ATM to their house, but the roommate had already left by the time the four men appeared at the door, police said.

Miree begged for his life, police said, as he told them he had no money.

All four men face the death penalty or life in prison without parole, if convicted.

Miree, a Vanderbilt University graduate and Birmingham native, worked as an engineer at the Chevron Corp. refinery in Pascagoula.

In 1999, a Mobile County judge moved the capital murder trial of Jane Lemoine, accused in the shotgun slaying of her estranged husband, to Montgomery because of pretrial publicity. She was eventually convicted and ordered to serve life in prison without parole.

In 2006, a judge granted a request by Mobile County school board member David Thomas to move a DUI trial to Birmingham because of news coverage. Thomas pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident as part of a deal with prosecutors before the trial took place.

More recently, though, the 2009 capital murder trial of Lam Luong, who threw his four young children off the Dauphin Island bridge to their deaths, was held in Mobile. That case received widespread local and national news coverage. Presiding Circuit Judge Charles Graddick decided to have local jurors questioned before ruling on the defense’s motion for a change of venue.

Updated at 4:52 p.m. to include details about previous trials in Mobile County.